NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover

[Eric Mc]

Pupp said:

Meanwhile, on Horsell Common, the large threaded plug on a still-smoking metallic looking cylinder that is half embedded in the sod starts to unscrew...

s again. I wish they'd clean up their rubbish.

[Beati Dogu]

This is where it landed:



The blue circle was the target area. Impressive.

This landing ellipse is only 4.8 miles long and 4.1 miles wide. Almost a circle, the accuracy is so good.

By comparison, the landing ellipse for the Viking missions was 174 miles long and 72 miles wide.

[Armchair_Expert]

When will the descent video be released and what sort of quality can we expect? Blurred computer pixels reminiscent of Huygens or a Netflix 2 screen account HD feature?

[RacerMike]

Armchair_Expert said:

When will the descent video be released and what sort of quality can we expect? Blurred computer pixels reminiscent of Huygens or a Netflix 2 screen account HD feature?

From what I read/heard, it’s allegedly full HD

[ChocolateFrog]

Incredible achievement.

So many things could do wrong.

Must have looked incredible if you could have stood on Mars look up watching this things descend on rockets and cranes.

Edited by ChocolateFrog on Friday 19th February 07:26

[Eric Mc]

Don't forget that they did this before - nine years ago. Perseverance is basically a modified version of Curiosity. It uses the same basic chassis and vehicle although the suite of scientific experiments carried on board is different.

So NASA has had practice with this type of descent and landing.

Corrected to get the lander name right.

Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 19th February 08:50

[MiniMan64]

Eric Mc said:

Don't forget that they did this before - nine years ago. Perseverance is basically a modified version of Opportunity. It uses the same basic chassis and vehicle although the suite of scientific experiments carried on board is different.

So NASA has had practice with this type of descent and landing.

Umm feels odd correcting you Eric but don’t you mean Curiosity?

Spirit and Opportunity were the little dinky solar powered ones from about 15 years ago?

[The Hofff]

I know its a completely different field but I work in the oilfield industry - we can spend multiple millions of dollars and several years designing/developing specialist equipment to essentially just drill and steer through the earth beneath us. Temperature, pressure, shock and vibration are extreme variables but we designs to tools to cope accordingly... however, things still go wrong.

Fortunately, we can just pull it back out of the hole and fix it or replace with another one, not quite the same when your equipment is on another plant

The achievement of sending a tonne of equipment to another plant and landing it safely is nothing short of amazing. Hats off to all that have worked on this, and all past projects.

Edited by The Hofff on Friday 19th February 08:24

[Big Nanas]

London424 said:

CraigyMc said:

MiniMan64 said:

London424 said:

That reaction when they found out where it landed seemed like they may have been off a bit.

Didn’t they say that it had the ability to pick its own landing site and adjust accordingly?

Yep. It has (well, had) the ability to select a landing zone itself. NASA call it terrain relative navigation (TRN).
Basically it'll avoid rough ground, cliffs, stuff like that.

It was just when they said it’s telling us where it is there was some strange comments and I swear I heard a “we’ll take it” or words to that effect. Maybe it’s not quite where they anticipated

I remember hearing 'Lander has successfully calculated a landing solution' (or words to that effect).

[Eric Mc]

MiniMan64 said:

Umm feels odd correcting you Eric but don’t you mean Curiosity?

Spirit and Opportunity were the little dinky solar powered ones from about 15 years ago?

Yes, I did. In my head I was typing Curiosity. Brains are strange things. I'll correct the original message.

There was also the even dinkier Sojourner, which was carried by the Pathfinder lander in 1997.

[FunkyNige]

generationx said:

So what really happens to the Sky Crane Eric?

I know this has been answered, but here's a video of the how the landing works. The sky crane bit is at about 3 minutes in


I'm in awe they managed to pull it off flawlessly twice.

[Oilchange]

Pupp said:

Meanwhile, on Horsell Common, the large threaded plug on a still-smoking metallic looking cylinder that is half embedded in the sod starts to unscrew...

Then an onlooker sneezes in it’s general direction...

[MartG]

Oilchange said:

Pupp said:

Meanwhile, on Horsell Common, the large threaded plug on a still-smoking metallic looking cylinder that is half embedded in the sod starts to unscrew...

Then an onlooker sneezes in it’s general direction...

[Ash_]

[rider73]

colin79666 said:

console.write(“Hello World”);

10 PRINT "Hello Mars"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

[ianrb]

FunkyNige said:

generationx said:

So what really happens to the Sky Crane Eric?

I know this has been answered, but here's a video of the how the landing works. The sky crane bit is at about 3 minutes in


I'm in awe they managed to pull it off flawlessly twice.

Some of those engineers look a bit young!

I must be getting old.

[CraigyMc]

MiseryStreak said:

I so want to be there.

No viruses.

No people.

No oxygen.

Heaven.

Hey, at least your corpse won't rot. It'll bleach.
(limited UV protection + "soil" made of perchlorate...)

[MXRod]

I was amazed at the size of the rover

3m long
2.7m wide
2.2 m high
1,025 kg
The size of family car

[MiniMan64]

MXRod said:

I was amazed at the size of the rover

3m long
2.7m wide
2.2 m high
1,025 kg
The size of family car

Yeah it’s fairly loaded, UAV on board, power source, all the instruments, it’s a bit of a step up from the earlier tinny rovers that were basically cameras and solar panels on wheels. I always quite liked the Curiosity was called the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

Seemed appropriate

[Russ35]

Press conference @ 6pm and more photos to be shown apparently.